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Suckling Pig En Blanquette

A slow‑cooked suckling pig served in a white sauce with mushrooms, parsley, and spices.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 13 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and mushroom are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 12,525 recipes. Both carry trans-2-decenal, which smells waxy, orange. The science ↓

Suckling Pig En Blanquette

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the meat

  1. Remove the flesh from the bones of the cold roast pig and cut it into small slices.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a pan and add the sliced mushrooms; cook for 3-4 minutes without browning.

  2. Stir in the flour and mix gently.

  3. Add parsley, bay leaf, mace, salt, cayenne or white pepper, broth, and white wine; let it boil gently until reduced by one third.

  4. Remove parsley and mace, add the meat, and bring to a simmer.

  5. Stir in the beaten egg yolks and lemon juice.

Serve

  1. Serve hot.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Butter + mushroomtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together12,525 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-decenal (waxy, orange).

  2. Mace + white peppertop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,695 recipes

    Shared aroma: myrcene (balsamic, herbaceous).

  3. Mushroom + parsleytop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,132 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + parsleytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together16,675 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Suckling pig
Provides the tender meat that is sliced and simmered in the sauce.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce into a smooth, creamy coating when gently heated.
Flour
Combines with the butter to form a roux that thickens the sauce.
White wine
Adds acidity and aroma as it reduces into the sauce.
Broth
Provides the liquid base of the sauce, concentrated by reduction.
Button mushrooms
Add earthy flavour and a soft texture to the sauce.

The step that matters

Stirring in the egg yolks. Egg yolks thicken by gentle heat, and if the sauce boils after they are added they can scramble and curdle. Keep it at a simmer and stir constantly.

Swap the white pepper

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, egg, mushroom, flour, parsley, mace, veal):

  1. Nutmegfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. White pepperthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, mushroom, flour, parsley, mace, veal. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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